Expectancy was in the air as we drove the bus towards Chambrun this morning.  We were going to church!  As we turned on to the last road–a dirt road–we started to pick up friends who were walking to church.  The first young gal was named Lovely, and she definitely fit her name.  As we picked up more Haitians–moms with their children–everyone was dressed in their absolute Sunday best.  As we got close to the campus, we could see lots and lots of people walking from all over to come to church.  Pastor Pierre shared a story tonight of a group of people who live half-way up the mountain and walk three hours to get to church on Sundays.  God’s people were gathering for worship, and we had a feeling of expectation as we got closer.

Pastor Pierre at Church

The worship service was full of passion.  The singing was amazing.  And Pastor Pierre was dynamic.   Pastor Gary is the leader of the church, but was not feeling well and so Pierre needed to step in and speak the message.  He spoke from Lamentations 3 and the faithfulness of God.  We were amazed at his energy and passion for his message, and how he was able to slip back and forth between Creole and English.  The impact he left on us as a man full of the Spirit and encouraging to us was deep.

Pastor Pierre has a tradition of inviting guests up front at church to be introduced and to sing a song.  The team gave a big thanks to Mallory tonight as we stuck a microphone in her hand and tapped her as our leader.  She led our team in “Amazing Grace”…and Mallory was amazing.  Admittedly she was embarrassed, but everyone agreed…the girl can sing!

Children's Choir

Back to the house for lunch, and then back in the bus to drive through downtown Port-au-Prince.  This is the part of the blog where my words break down a bit.  As one gal on our team put it tonight, pictures just don’t come close to capturing what it is really like.  As we turned one right turn, the smell of humanity hit us like we had run into a wall.  Army Adam shared tonight that some of his army buddies who were here right after the quake had warned him that it was worse than the war zone in Iraq.  Adam was so skeptical…until today.  It is so much worse.

white house

And to think it has been six months since the quake and there are still people’s moms, dads, sons and daughters in many of these collapsed buildings.  There were many tears tonight and many expressions of the difficulty of grasping the enormity of it all.

government building

There is so much more to tell as each person is experiencing Haiti and experiencing God in unique ways.  There isn’t room to tell all the stories.  Here are a few additional notes from Sunday:

-We stopped for dinner at a hotel restaurant in Port-au-Prince tonight.  Two of our young girls were conspiring to find a way to pay for our translators meal (Clarice…amazing young man!) before they knew that we were taking care of his meal.

Storm Coming...imagine you live here

-The rain in Port-au-Prince seemed to pick up hundreds and hundreds of bottles and loads of garbage and wash it downhill.  It wasn’t even raining that hard, and yet the trash was immense that was caught in the flow of water.  It was quite a sight to see.

Soccer in the rain on the streets of Port-au-Prince

-We may have made a connection to a ministry here in Haiti that has access to antibiotics and needs clinics like the one at NVM to give them away…at dinner of all places.  They also distribute medications to other clinics, so many of the drugs that we have so many of and will never be used before they expire, could possibly be re-distributed to places that can.

-Aaron and the bus have developed, shall we say, a “special” relationship.  After driving in March without incident, Aaron has successfully taken out a window and driven in the dark with no lights–twice (and probably removed a side mirror for a red car somewhere out there).  Tonight he was once again driving in the dark except this time it was also in the rain. Well, just to add to the growing incident report, today we drove under an electrical wire in downtown Port-au-Prince that was hanging very low and we managed to rip the emergency door that was propped open in the roof straight off its hinges. Sigh…confidence is running low on driving the bus in Haiti.

Dogs take cover in the rain

Tonight’s drive home, in the dark, in the rain, with nothing more than a strobe light on the roof, was without incident until we turned the very last corner before Pierre’s house.  We were met with a giant truck blocking the street to the house.  Round the block I go…which is not as easy as it sounds.  This will require the very narrow right turn that I had to take the night before, which once navigated (barely), had a burning fire where my right tires need to go.  Great….how much character am I going to add to this bus?  I am not sure it can take much more.

Well, the van is parked safely (exhale) in the driveway.  What tomorrow brings, I guess God only knows!

Hands